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LIZ ROSENBERG set to RETIRE!


MLVC82

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she has been training someone for years now so we knew this was gonna happen but i'll miss liz. she's so tough and got balls of steel and always had great one liners to the press

thinking about it now, we haven't even heard her respond to the press in ages about M.. but she made the howard stern interview & many other things happen. I'll miss her :(

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Guest Rachelle of London

Oh bloody hell don't give Madonna and Guy any ideas Perez. Perez is bound to be cheaper :lmao:

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:ohmy::(

Liz is a genius and like a protective mum to Madonna

She's probably the person who's stayed with Madonna the longest business wise

Ever since her band days came to an end

So basically almost since the very start

Where can I find that gif of Liz shoving a reporter out of Madonna's way on a red carpet in the early 90s?

I've always loved her

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What's it like being 'Mom' to Madonna?: Liz Rosenberg is paid to keep the star out of trouble. With the launch of Sex and Erotica, she faces her greatest challenge, says Teresa Carpenter (from the New York Times, 1992)

efbaa6282da0cf5ce30ce048f110d76d.jpg

ON ONE wall of Liz Beth Rosenberg's office on the 20th floor of the Time-Warner Building in midtown Manhattan hang magazine covers depicting the rise of one Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone, from boy-toy to super-vamp. Against the other wall stands a bank of hair dryers used by Madonna's troupe in Truth or Dare, the cinema verite account of her Blond Ambition tour.

Ms Rosenberg, 44, is a vice-president at Warner Brothers Records, where she is publicist for Seal, k d lang and other musicians. Running interference for the label's big gun, however, consumes nearly two-thirds of her time - maybe more from this week, when Madonna's latest album, Erotica, is released, followed by the already notorious book of photographs - Sex - in which the celebrity photographer Steven Meisel purports to document everything that Madonna finds a turn-on. She will also co-star with Willem Dafoe in the thriller Body of Evidence, to open here next year; the film has an NC-17 ('no children under 17') rating because of its erotic content.

Ms Rosenberg sits on one of three 'aqua' chairs confiscated as souvenirs from the tour's 'Material Girl' number. She is wearing purple leggings and gold sandals. Her blonde hair is swept back on one side and fastened with a faux tortoise-shell comb. She could be mistaken for Madonna's mother.

'She calls me Mom sometimes,' Ms Rosenberg acknowledges. 'I'm completely maternal, very protective toward Madonna. She's strong in a lot of ways. But I know a lot of it is just a front. I try to teach her things the way mothers want to teach their children about life: patience, empathy and calm. And humour. Sometimes I just remind her: 'Let's not take any of this too seriously.' '

Ms Rosenberg met Madonna, now 33, in 1983, when the singer walked into her office wearing 'a black outfit with a hundred rubber bracelets on each wrist'. Madonna was then an unknown singer and 'dance artist' on the Lower East Side club scene, who had been recruited by Warner Brothers to cut two singles. The publicist was struck by Madonna's fearlessness. 'Maybe that's one of the things that impressed me early on,' Ms Rosenberg says. 'I'm filled with fears.'

During the early days of her career, Madonna would drop into Ms Rosenberg's office to use the phone and talk about her boyfriends. More recently, when Madonna was having a much-publicised affair with Warren Beatty during the filming of Dick Tracy, he turned to Ms Rosenberg for advice on dealing with his inamorata, who, he claimed, lived her life too publicly. 'He was into the publicity game of another era - so elusive and the chase and all of that. It's just not the way publicity is any more.'

The way Ms Rosenberg plays the game is by creating the illusion of openness. She has advised Madonna never to say 'no comment', a phrase that, in print, has the effect of making a celebrity appear guilty as hell. The task of dealing with unruly reporters also falls to Ms Rosenberg. She has refined the art of clever one-liners, which often serve to amuse while stopping the questioner mid-sentence. For example, asked to confirm a rumour that Madonna once stubbed out her cigarette on a boyfriend, Ms Rosenberg replied: 'She doesn't smoke; she sizzles.'

Each morning the publicist calls Madonna to, as Ms Rosenberg puts it, take her temperature. 'If I have to disrupt her time in the studio,' she explains, 'I have to know if she's in a bitchy mood.' Ms Rosenberg's power within the industry derives from the fact that she controls virtually all access to Madonna and has authority to speak on her behalf.

How does Madonna, a self-professed control freak, feel about delegating the responsibility of speaking for herself? 'We've worked together for years and years and years,' the star says of Ms Rosenberg. 'She understands the consequences of whatever she says. I'd say 99 per cent of the time it is what I would have told her to say. We're at the point where we're reading each other's minds.'

In 1985, when Playboy published nude photographs taken while Madonna was a photographer's model, Ms Rosenberg says the singer came into her office wailing that her career was over. Ms Rosenberg recalls telling her: 'This is not a big deal. We're not gonna let it be a big deal.' Then she directed Madonna to 'get back on her horse' and perform at the Live Aid concert before a worldwide television audience. The incident quickly shrank to the status of a footnote to the Madonna legend.

Since then, Pepsi has dropped her as a spokeswoman after viewing her 'Like a Prayer' video, the Vatican has exhorted Roman Catholics to boycott her concerts in Italy and the Canadian police have threatened to arrest her for lewdness. But under Ms Rosenberg's deft manoeuvring, Madonna has managed to bob back like a weighted penguin.

Ms Rosenberg prides herself on setting Madonna up with interviewers with whom there will be good chemistry. The publicist seems proudest of a widely syndicated interview published last year by the Advocate, the gay newspaper. She hand-picked the interviewer, Don Shewey, who queried the star about such matters as dildos and what she did with her old underwear. Ms Rosenberg, who was ensconced in an adjoining room crocheting 'like Madame Defarge', says she thought Madonna came across as 'funny and witty and brilliant and sparkling'. The Advocate interview appeared contemporaneously with - and as something of a corrective to - the film Truth or Dare. The publicist felt the movie made her client out to be an angry harridan. 'I thought she was much too heartless in the film,' Ms Rosenberg says. 'I was like, 'Oh, Madonna. How come you talk about your family like that]' Sometimes she listens. Sometimes she doesn't'

Michael Musto, a columnist for the Village Voice who covers the New York club scene, says: 'Liz has the easiest job in the world, and the hardest. On one hand, she can call up any magazine and get Madonna on the cover. On the other, she has to take calls from every crackpot around.'

When the tabloid papers circulated a rumour that Madonna was HIV-positive, she issued a statement, on Ms Rosenberg's recommendation, that the Aids stories were false, adding: 'If this is what I have to deal with for my involvement in fighting this epidemic, then so be it.' The rumours stopped.

In private Ms Rosenberg is a collector of kitsch and an avid reader of true-crime books, professing a particular fondness for 'family murders'. She lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, something she has aspired to since she was a teenager. 'I always wanted to be Doris Day,' she says. 'You know, career girl, apartment overlooking The City.' A nursing student from Long Beach, Long Island, she was drawn to the music business by an enthusiasm for 'show tunes, Laura Nyro and Marvin Gaye'.

After secretarial jobs with various PR firms, Ms Rosenberg went to Warner Brothers. As a secretary and assistant to the director of publicity she was given latitude to spot and promote new talent. Among her early finds was Van Morrison. 'Nobody wanted to cover Van Morrison,' she recalls. 'I said: 'I'll do it.' I would have scrubbed his bathroom.'

During her ensuing 20 years at Warner Brothers, she has helped to mould the images of Fleetwood Mac, Rickie Lee Jones and Van Halen ('I personally distributed the backstage passes to the cutest girls in the audience'). But now she has attained celebrity in her own right, as Madonna's press agent.

'I count how many times I hear the 'M-word' mentioned in the course of my day,' she says with amused exasperation. 'My doorman asks me how Madonna is every morning. You know, my Aunt Pauline on her death bed asked: 'How's Madonna? Is the marriage gonna last?' I could get crazy, or I could just laugh about it.'

Two years ago, Ms Rosenberg married Phil Citron, a booking agent for Tom Jones and Julio Iglesias. Mr Citron is the one person in his wife's life who professes no interest in her celebrated client. 'I love him for that,' explains Ms Rosenberg, 'because obviously there are people who just see me as a person who will get them a little closer to Madonna.'

Meanwhile, Ms Rosenberg is gearing up to cope with the clamour over Erotica and Sex. The challenge for the publicist will be to position the album and book as works of art, not simply pornography. She describes the book in carefully chosen phrases such as 'beautifully done' and 'very, very funny'.

Ms Rosenberg knows there is a line that even her superstar client cannot cross. As the darling of the youth culture enters her mid-thirties, her ever-changing image will need to mature. Pop artistes who preen in lingerie, or nothing at all, tend to have a short shelf life.

No problem, says Ms Rosenberg, whose job, it seems, extends to putting the best possible spin on middle age. 'I'm sure that Madonna is going to do the forties like nobody - and be great at it. I just think she'll wear the most sophisticated, fabulous clothes and be worldly and a patron of the arts. I can't wait to see it.'

God I love this! Thanks for posting it Mattress

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:ohmy::(

Liz is a genius and like a protective mum to Madonna

She's probably the person who's stayed with Madonna the longest business wise

Ever since her band days came to an end

So basically almost since the very start

Where can I find that gif of Liz shoving a reporter out of Madonna's way on a red carpet in the early 90s?

I've always loved her

liz-rosenberg-madonna-o.gif

:rotfl: :rotfl:

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Mattress, thank you for posting that interview.

:cries:

'She calls me Mom sometimes,' Ms Rosenberg acknowledges. 'I'm completely maternal, very protective toward Madonna. She's strong in a lot of ways. But I know a lot of it is just a front. I try to teach her things the way mothers want to teach their children about life: patience, empathy and calm. And humour. Sometimes I just remind her: 'Let's not take any of this too seriously.' '
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Sorry, not sorry.

She did a nice job but it's time for fresh air, Madonna needs a millennial chick with cool and new ideas.

Ms Rosenberg IS a millennial chick! She's going to be so missed so much but I'm sure she'll stick around in the background guiding Madonna and her new publicist.
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liz-rosenberg-madonna.jpg

Mattress, thanks for all of the photos and articles you have been posting on Madonna and Liz. Always so happy when you are posting up a storm. Your knowledge and love for Madonna is second to none. :inlove:

I will be so sad to see Liz go. Just love her and knew she always had a lot of "motherly" love for Madonna from the word go. Such a great character in every way.

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liz-rosenberg-madonna-o.gif

:rotfl: :rotfl:

OMG thank you, I've always loved this gif!! :rotfl::rotfl:

Saw it once on here and could never find it again

Is there footage also? I'd love to see that in full motion :lmao:

Brilliant and strong, like her client

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Mattress, thank you for posting that interview.

:cries:

That was fantastic indeed

And the part you quoted ...... wow

I hope it's just a rumour

How old is she? 10-15 years Madonna senior? If she's indeed retiring she's certainly earned it

She must have been going for at least 40 years now

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Liz Rosenberg's views on today's publicity/celebrity landscape, fascinating:

2011 Minneapolis Star Tribune article

“When Lady Gaga’s record came out and she was doing TV all over the world, I would say it’s five times more than Madonna did. If they’re not saying ‘You’re overexposed,’ then you’re not doing your job. The appetite is insatiable. It’s way more extreme than it used to be on the wardrobe part.
Some divas work directly with couture designers; some have stylists who pick out their clothes. Any way you look at it, fans expect much more. They used to just expect a great record and maybe a little press. The revelation of a lot of their lives is amped up these days.
Drama, though, doesn’t always equate with commercial success.”
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That was fantastic indeed

And the part you quoted ...... wow

I hope it's just a rumour

How old is she? 10-15 years Madonna senior? If she's indeed retiring she's certainly earned it

She must have been going for at least 40 years now

Sadly, not a rumour. Billboard has also reported it. Link

In the article that Mattress posted, it indicated Liz at age 44 and Madonna at 33, so 11 years older.

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liz-rosenberg-madonna-o.gif

:rotfl: :rotfl:

omg this is fabulous !!!!! :dead: :dead: :dead:

Are there more iconic scenes like that ???

Its actually sad that she wont be on her side anymore. She did an amazin job and she was very smart. Hopefully she will write an essay about her journey with the Queen <3

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Are there any other other interviews with Liz, apart from this one?:

George Satsidis interviews Madonna and Liz at "Sticky and Sweet Tour" backstage in Wales, UK August 2008.

Liz's interview starts at 2:59.

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Liz is the one constant since the beginning, managers and pa's, trainers come and go.

She has contributed greatly.

Probably Madonna is the new Liz [not sure if thats possible]

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I love Liz and her "mum relationship" with M, she's done a great job with the press and she protected M well. She'll be missed.

But we should not be worried, Madonna's best publicist is... herself! The biggest publicity throughout her career came from herself : from the LaV MTV performance to the BIM video, Madonna knows how to get free publicity. She needs a new publicist to advice her and book her interviews, but that's it, M remains The Brain :queenbitch:

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Liz is the one constant since the beginning, managers and pa's, trainers come and go.

She has contributed greatly.

Probably Madonna is the new Liz [not sure if thats possible]

:thumbsup:

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